In this episode, our host Joanna Oakey is joined by two special guests, Hugo Martin and Harry Notaras, who are both certified business brokers and registered business valuators at ABS Business Sales. Initially, we planned to discuss the state of the market, but the conversation takes an interesting turn as they delve into the unique marketing approaches adopted by Hugo and Harry in ABS Business Sales, particularly their “Pinot Fridays” podcast.
The discussion covers various topics such as marketing strategies, the challenges and opportunities for business owners right now, and the role of differentiation, client focus, and team motivation in the business broking industry. Overall, these elements come together to highlight how to create value for businesses and stay competitive in the market – something we’re sure everyone can learn from.
Episode Highlights:
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- 1:17 Introduction to Hugo Martin and Harry Notaras
- 3:09 The importance of customer service and its role in differentiating businesses
- 6:30 A branding exercise and long-term communication with businesses preparing to exit
- 7:39 Key factors to success in business, such as leadership and attracting followers
- 12:46 The significance of culture and enthusiasm in hospitality businesses
- 13:38 The importance of customer focus
- 14:25 The relentless nature of business and the need for constant effort and improvement
Connect with Hugo and Harry:
ABS Business Sales
Leave us a review:
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-deal-room/id1267098895
Transcript below!
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so will be full of errors! We are not providing it to you as a word-perfect version of the podcast but just as an easy way to provide you with a different way to be able to scan for information that might be relevant to you.
Transcript below!
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so will be full of errors! We are not providing it to you as a word-perfect version of the podcast but just as an easy way to provide you with a different way to be able to scan for information that might be relevant to you.
Joanna:
Hi it’s Joanna Oakey here and welcome back to The Deal Room Podcast, a podcast proudly brought to you by our commercial legal practice Aspect Legal. Now today we have a bit of an interesting one for you a little bit different to what we normally talk about we have on the show, Hugo Martin and Harry Notaras from ABS business sales and you go and Harry, talk to us about some very interesting things I guess. Firstly, a bit of background. Hugo is a certified business broker and registered business valuer with more than 15 years as a business broker and in 2018 was awarded Queensland business broker of the Year. Harry is also a certified business broker and registered business valuer with ABS business sales. Now in this episode with Harry and, Hugo, we weren’t going to talk about the state of the market. But as it turned out, we got a little bit distracted, talking about some really interesting approaches to marketing that go and hand in hand and have been adopted in their Pinot Fridays. So we talk about marketing. We talk about life as a business broker and some of the challenges but we also talk about the challenges and the opportunities for business owners as a whole as we dig into the type of content that you go and Harry talk about on the Pinot Fridays, and I think it’s such a great conversation because we talk about the importance of differentiation in the market, we talk about the importance of having a client-centric focus, and also the importance of really having a highly motivated and engaged team. And all of these things are not just hugely important for creating value for businesses at scale. But they’re also important for anyone who’s in the business broking industry to keep in mind in terms of how we can differentiate ourselves in this market. So without further ado, here are Hugo and Harry.
Hugo and Harry a huge welcome to The Deal Room Podcast now I’ve wanted to record this for a while because I have heard around the traps about your Pinot Fridays is that we call it? Pinot Friday?
Hugo and Harry:
We do.
Joanna:
Tell me all about that like what is that all about other than you know, I completely identify with you wanting to finish the week with with with a splash of wine, but I’m recording as well like this is something new?
Hugo:
Well, about five years ago, my wife said to me, so he go, you should get into the social media stuff because she’ll see what’s in social media, and area and asset.
Harry:
Now she said that a variety is three or four years to get into it.
Hugo:
Sorry, that’s I stand corrected. And anyway, so she said you should get out there before anybody else does. And nobody was doing anything really, or any significance in terms of social media, certainly within business broking network here in Australia,
Joanna:
other than The Deal Room Podcast.
Hugo and Harry:
That’s right!
Hugo:
We just sat down and my wife Jane said, Just Just do something. So eventually, we said let’s just do something we have no idea what to do. So what should we call it? So we’ll do
Unknown Speaker
just to show you guys on the other neighborhood. So I just said,
Hugo:
What about Pinot Friday sounds good. Other’s don’t sound good. Pinot Friday, is the perfect title. And so we actually had no idea what we’re doing. So we just went out and bought this rickety old stand from a local shops stop the iPhone on it. And they said, can’t be that difficult?
Joanna:
And what sort of, we’ll come back to the Pinot in a moment. So just, you know, hold on to that thought, but what what sort of content to record? Do you talk about the Pinot or you talk about business?
Hugo:
About business, so we thought, you know, let’s not make it just about businesses, because people know, a business brokers. And so that’s obvious, you know. So going out and doing the hard sell was not what we were intending to do. So we thought, let’s just talk about things of interest.
Harry:
Actually early in the piece, we used to give a lot of thought we did what would right, five minutes. Two, it was just too too much time too hard to give a lot of thought, believe it or not. So we so Hugo said, let’s just talk about this. So I said, fine. So we give us that we did give each other five minutes to think about think about the topic a little bit. And then we just go and do
Hugo:
So we thought, let’s talk about what are the what are the key factors in any business environment? What do we need? What are the ingredients? So if we’re making a cake, we know the ingredients need to be so generally in business to be successful, what are the key ingredients? So we thought we’ll do leadership? We’ll talk about persistence. We’ll talk about you know, people will talk about anything except selling businesses.
Joanna:
Alright, so that’s your whole mode.
Hugo:
Occasionally talk about you know, how fabulous we are this stuff is tangential, you know, it’s got a little bit more of that, but, and Harry, these are trained economists. So yeah, he has a perspective, which I hope to emulate at some point going on, but 90 you can provide a more specific, pithy that’s word I was looking for analysis. So what we did, what I did was, I actually went made a list of just titles, about 25. All different types of headings, you know, love said leadership, persistence, all those types of things. What are the key drivers of any business that people, marketing, branding? Just anything, and we just thought we’ll just talk for five minutes on that particular topic. And we’ll spend three minutes waffling about a wine and having a drink. This has
Harry:
been handy because we talk about these topics, right? But quite often, they come from a layman’s point of view. Yeah. And then we switched to or we mentioned a more technical economist finance, business broking point of view. And so I try and marry them up, but that just happens organically. And then when he talks about the wine, I just sit there and nod mostly.
Joanna:
He’s on the technical wines.
Hugo:
It is totally unrehearsed and we don’t go in there with a script or anything. We just said, this is the topic. Let’s make it happen.
Joanna:
And I think this is an interesting comment. We’re gonna be talking about different things today initially, but but just while we’re on this point, I think it’s an interesting thing that we’re talking about because we have we have listeners who are buyers and sellers of businesses who are accountants, but also, you know, business brokers for all of those people, this whole concept of how do you market yourself is an interesting and a tangential topic to what I normally talk about. But but but relevant to everyone nonetheless. And we’re actually at, we’re almost at 260 or more episodes, I don’t know if the deal room now we’re up to almost 400. I’ve got a second podcast, that’s called Talking Law we’ve got so in total, we’ve got about 440 episodes. So I’ve, and I’ve hit this interesting point where because I used to plan things, just like you were saying it right in the beginning, and now it’s more driven on what people want to hear about and interesting things that I’m hearing around in the market. But it’s interesting being a content producer, as a, you know, because that’s what you are to and I love that whole the Pinot concept and we do have to get to Pinot in a second. But but I’m just interested in in hearing about what you think. Are you coming at this if you’re talking about things that aren’t necessarily about business sale, but your business is selling businesses? Is your idea that you then have this long communication cycle with businesses as they’re preparing to exit? Or is it more just, you’re just doing this? For the love of it?
Harry:
Yeah, we wouldn’t have it complicated.
Hugo:
this whole thing really was was a branding exercise. If we were totally honest, that’s part of it. Right at the beginning, we saw had we brand ourselves differently. How do we get out there? How do we utilize the technology that’s becoming available to our advantage in a space that we have no knowledge of whatsoever? And that’s why and then we talk about general subjects that do they do focus in towards the end on if these if you have a fabulous leadership within your organization, you will attract great people, you will encourage what what are the key factors to success in business are leaders are people who can who can who can stimulate and attract followers that have a purpose. So the three factors in any leadership, so you look at your going to church or you know, there has to be a situation there has to be there has to be followers, which was the British people. And you know, there has to be a leader, which is the individual himself. You combine all those things together in a in a business context. It’s no different.
Joanna:
It’s interesting. I guess, if we’re coming back, I just want to pick up on a point that you made about the when you started about the different the need to differentiate yourself in the market. And I think I think that’s such a good point. And I was holding a webinar last week, actually where I was talking, had someone on the panel who had sold a 1000 person, multi, multi million dollar business, you know, he had a brilliant business. And he was talking about the need to differentiate for every business to differentiate themselves. And that that being a critical element of creating success in business. And when I heard that, I just thought that is so that rings so true to me. And of course we see businesses don’t mean our industry I’m talking about now, the broking side, we’re not brokers, obviously, we lawyers, but we see businesses that exit we see businesses that that have achieved that achieve real value at sale, and what differentiates them from those businesses that struggle to sell or struggle to make the value that the owners feel that they should should be getting out of the business that they’re selling. And it is some of those these factors that we’re talking about right now. And I presume that you you talk about on on your weekly podcast?
Hugo:
it’s every two weeks.
Joanna:
Every two weeks Yep. Yep, that really make the difference in value at exit
Hugo:
that critical customer service element is is unifying, unifying, important to every single business. So even a business like yours, China, you know, the thing that differentiates legal practices really comes down to customer service is treating each individual person that walks through that door. You know, as as you know, someone you nurture and you deliver service, you happen to deliver a technical legal service, we deliver a service in terms of knowledge of how you transact a sale in a business or or if you work on behalf of a buyer as a buyer’s agent. Similarly, you know, the Is that is the ability to deliver a superior customer service that ultimately I think differentiates almost any business doesn’t matter how good your product is. Unless you’re Apple, which case you can just get away with it. But unfortunately, we can’t.
Joanna:
Well, on that note, then, like what what are examples that you’ve seen of, of businesses that have really got it all together from all of the elements that you talk about, in your fortnightly Pinot Fridays, what’s an example of businesses you’ve dealt with, they’ve got that all together and then gone to market and that proven to create a success for them at market
Hugo:
Sort of technology business. That really was, it was about couple of years no, just before COVID, this particular one, and the lady who owned that she had a really, she wasn’t from a technology background. But she was very good at understanding people. And she was really good at customer service. And she managed to imbued a culture within that business of really the importance of the customer. And so she was able to translate that into every transaction that they did had a almost a customer service benchmark that had to be met. And she was immensely successful. And we sold, I sold that business to a buyer and in Singapore. Fantastic time, a fantastic business, also within the hospitality space that I come from the businesses that are easier to sell, and they’re never really easy to sell. Because not just because certainly at the moment because the staff issues, but the ones that really, it’s not just a lot of you see the businesses that some somehow have everything, but something’s missing. So you walk into a walk into a cafe or restaurant and the hair stands up on the back of your head, because it’s has energy, it has generated something intangible that gives that that business, something that holds it together is it comes back to culture. And developing this culture and culture is definition of culture is the glue that holds something together in a simplified way. So if you’ve got if you can somehow create this culture and is driven by the by the person at the top, they drive it, they’re able to infuse an enthusiasm into the people that work for them. And ultimately, so you don’t get very well paid in hospitality, you weren’t there. Because it’s fun. It gives you something you walk out feeling a better person at the end of the day, I
Harry:
You should warn people if they watch Master Chef, don’t buy a hospitality business. Destroy your passion. But
Hugo:
so, so busy hospitality businesses that succeed, you walk down the street, and there’s, there’s 10 businesses, three or four, and the others all look the same. So why there’s not the food is something special is that is the culture that’s been bred into every single person that works in their business. And that same applies, I’ve had manufacturing businesses as well, where you think of the boring old thing, you know, creating, you know, balance trades and stuff like that, but they again, treated their customers in the same way. Really strong sense of the importance of the customer. It’s not actually
Harry:
rocket science. Really, it’s, it’s not simple.
Joanna:
I was gonna say you may not be rocket science, but it’s not simple either. You know, there’s the ideas, perhaps simple and straightforward execution.
Harry:
Yeah, of course, are trying to figure out how you’re going to get there. It’s all these impediments or obstacles constantly thrown at you. If you’re in business. Yeah, well, I find, you know, with a business I sell, if they look like a business, you know, you go in there and they’re functioning and they’re busy, and they got staff and they’ve got a lease in the front shopfront. They got a sign and they do things and they got a website and happy customers. To get to that point. It’s not easy. It sounds straightforward, but that’s all you got to do. To keep it simple, just keep plodding along.
Joanna:
But that’s all you got to do.
Hugo:
If you have someone who’s a leader, who understands what the core they keep, it happens. Yeah. Because in this relentless as well, you can never give up. Nothing. I’ve got there, sit back and enjoy it. No, there is no relenting. You have got there’s got to be no no error.
Harry:
There has to be such a tyranny in this. austerity. Yeah. dictatorship.
Hugo:
You do. I mean, the business lamphead hospitality. I had a philosophy. That said basically there is absolutely no room for error. Whenever we work on 100% satisfaction, you cannot make a mistake. Obviously, that’s not possible. But if you approach it with, we cannot make a mistake. Because some of this stuff was said to me, you go, you’re nuts. And that be the case. I said, if you’re lying on the operating theatre, and in the brain surgeon, it’s got your head open, do you think there’s room for error? Because there isn’t. So there’s no room for error. And what we do have that you might just be serving through that there’s no, and I think, because it we all make mistakes. That’s fine. But that if you have that philosophy driven passion for excellence, and that comes through supporting the people that work for you, to make that happen. The critical is nothing like Harry said, it’s not it’s not that complex.
Harry:
It’s not complex, it’s just difficult.
Joanna:
We’ve actually, just literally two days ago, I hired a someone to become the engagement manager for our team, because, you know, we’ve got we’ve got an amazing team. But one of the things that is super important to me is that we have team that are fulfilled by what they do, because team that are engaged, and you know, we’ve got a legal firm. So we’ve got a lot of smart, you know, is the lawyers, they’ve studied a lot. They’re technically on top of things. But it’s it’s also about finding in the legal profession, a way to connect our lawyers and our team with with something bigger, you know, in that connection to our clients that connect connection to the purpose of what we’re doing. But But I do find an area like law is one of those ones, where it’s really hard to find examples to follow of how to create that great culture, because it’s not any any industry that’s known for having great culture for staff, right.
Hugo:
I had a lawyer, a law student with me, at the Lyrebird, here in Brisbane, and he worked for me for about four years. And he was ducks it in Lloyd UQ. And then he went to become a senior partner at one of the major law companies, Harrington, and then he went to Cambridge and did a master’s in law, but really smart kid. And he is now senior partner, one of the major law firms here in Australia. And he wrote to us to say that the thing that differentiated him, in his industry, he said, was the lessons he learned for the four years that he worked as a waiter. He said, You know, I apply exactly the same philosophy behind every transaction that I do. Every person that walks into as a client, to me are treated as if I was a waiter, at serving them at a table, if that’s the core difference between me and some of my colleagues, and and I attribute that to the extreme, extraordinary success that I’ve been able to achieve. Obviously, he worked hard, he was very smart, and study nothing like a touch of humility. It’s just finding those tough they’re not big things. That really tiny thing respectful, respectful things that they’re getting everyone together I said do you realize who’s the boss in this in this whole process the customer
Joanna:
Well, look, we have traversed some very interesting issues, but what we have not talked about so far is Pino so we’ve got I’ve got the I’ve got the glass here. I haven’t even filled it up. I was like rushing to the podcast. And I’ve actually I’m lucky. I mean, I’m in lucky because my husband appeared to have been drinking a Pinot last night. So I stole the rest of his podcast today, but tell me, tell me please. What is the P know that you’re drinking here today on? It’s actually Thursday, not P No. Friday today when we’re holding Pinot, you know, Thursday,
Hugo:
State Peninsula Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir lovely. Paringa was established in 1985 by Lindsay McCall, and this particular Vinyard has won numerous awards. It’s you know one they do fabulous. Chardonnays go to die for
Joanna:
Love Chardonnay or they go okay, well have to put that on my list.
Hugo:
rancorous that that’s the estate Chardonnay. This is a peninsula shot and so this is not their top of the range, but it’s all very, very good wine. And Pinot is one of those great things. It’s the Holy Grail of winemaking. It’s a launch you can do that, but actually make a piano grand piano is elusive. They just don’t behave the way they normally do. aka Kevin Irish. So when you get it right, it is utterly sublime. Beautiful.
Joanna:
So have you tasted this drop yet? No. Okay, well you have to give us notes once you taste it so that we can put it up on the show notes to this podcast.
Harry:
Once we have the microphone on because you have to hear the crack of the bottle and the glove glove because
Hugo:
we’ll talk about if you want to can have a little drink.
Joanna:
Okay, we’ll do it. Open it up. I want to hear you. Okay, I want to hear the glug glug.
Hugo:
This is part of a Pinot Friday,
Hugo:
So it is part of our ritual. So we look we look at the colors as an important thing.
Harry:
That looks like an aged one. But it’s not.
Hugo:
It’s not it’s a it’s got a beautiful Ruby crimson character isn’t
Harry:
the wrong light looked a little bit smoky. It does. There’s a tiny bit of elegance.
Joanna:
How’s it smell?
Harry:
Divine. Beautiful. Can you increase numbers?
Harry:
It’s like breathing a pizza.
Hugo:
there’s a bit of cherries that wonderful raspberry
Harry:
I like it. I like the smell of it. I wish I could describe it
Hugo:
has got beautiful forest the characters. It’s got a lovely sort of middle palate here. Right Way across the vanilla extract.
Joanna:
Okay, I’ve decided I was actually thinking of setting up a competing channel to your Pinot Friday, I was thinking of doing Chardonnay Thursday or something. But I just like you’ve got this down pat, I can’t compete with this. You’ve definitely differentiated yourselves in the market.
Harry:
Differentiation with it, so do what you’re doing. But
Hugo:
it’s funny because we talked about peanuts and the great American set setters, James Thurber. But this there was this cartoon of him sitting around a table with some of his colleagues. And they put this Pinot Noir in this glob of Burgundy, which is met with Bergen is, which is the net region of France and the red wines that produces Pinot Noir. So they’re all sitting there. There’s all these gray haired sort of academics, old bull sniffing the wine and the guy the head of the table said. He said. He said it’s a naive, domestic little burgundy. But I think you’d be amused by presumption.
Joanna:
Oh, I love it. So this, this Hugo and Harry is Pinot Friday on a Thursday, as we say, you know, full disclosure, it’s actually Thursday, not Friday. These these you have it, folks is Pino Friday, I just think that I think it’s a great idea. And I guess sort of rounding out for what it all means for our business owners who are listening in or indeed our brokers or our candidates, I think part of obviously, we’ve talked about differentiation. And this is a way for you to differentiate in the market. I love though, I love the idea that you take something that you enjoy so much and infuse it into what you do, because I guess a lot of business. To be fair, if we didn’t have a passion for what we’re doing, why would we come in each day and, and do the hard yards that it takes to run a business, run a transaction, whatever that is, but I like the idea of pick something that you love, and then combined it with a bit of
Hugo:
business broking is a tough game, the tough game. So you got to find highlights in the week a good bit of fun out of it. You know, it’s really about getting outstanding results for both your clients and your customers.
Harry:
And you have a lot of license if you’re a business broker as well. Yeah, do the things you do.
Hugo:
I mean, they’re enormous responsibility. I mean, it’s an absolute honor to be able to do this job because we’re that we’re the element that helps people convert an asset into cash. Balance Sheets. Exactly.
Joanna:
You know what, that’s what I say all the time as well. Because, you know, from a legal perspective, there’s, you know, any other area of law almost entirely is full of some sort of conflict or, but, but this area is, you know, really it’s about finding the win win. And how lucky are we to be in an industry where we can work every day to help people find the win. we’d hate to that yeah finally my husband had left me anything to put in my class but love it your look out for the competing yes the computer. Can I just say how are you in Hugo just a huge thank you for joining us on The Deal Room Podcast today.
Hugo and Harry:
Thank you very much.
Joanna:
Now if anyone is interested in tuning into heroine who goes Pinoy Friday we’re gonna put some links in the show notes and we’ll also put a link through to the two of you guys so they can make contact with you if they’re interested in talking about pinos or hey, maybe even selling their business
Hugo and Harry:
Thank you very much
Joanna:
Well, that’s it for this episode of The Deal Room Podcast. We hope you’re now primed for your next deal with these pointers and have enjoyed these fascinating insights. Now if you’d like more information about this topic, then head over to our website at thedealroompodcast.com where you’ll be able to download a transcript of this episode as well as access contact details and any other additional information we referred to today’s podcast. Now if you’d like to get in contact with our guests today and the services they offer, you can go ahead and check out our show notes for a link right through to them and their details. You can also book directly with our Legal Eagles at Aspect Legal. If you’d like to soundboard your next steps, discuss a legal question or find out more about how we can assist whether that’s with buying or selling a business or perhaps somewhere in between. Now, don’t forget to subscribe to The Deal Room Podcast on your favourite podcast player to get notifications whenever a new episode is out. We’d also love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and rating. If you’re already one of our subscribers or even if you’re listening to this podcast for the very first time, every review helps our team produce valuable content for you. Well, thanks again for listening in. You’ve been listening to Joanna Oakey and The Deal Room Podcast, a podcast proudly brought to you by our commercial legal practice Aspect Legal. See you next time.
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